A QUESTION: So with the unaccounted-for TARP money, the AIG bailout debacle, and the uncertainty about whether the U.S. wants the dollar to remain the reserve currency, why is anyone enthused about giving the government more responsibility for the economy?

UPDATE: A.P.: Bold claims of stimulus jobs can’t be measured.

No promise from President Barack Obama is more important to the wounded economy than his vow to save or create some 3.5 million jobs in two years. In support of that bottom line, the government even tells states how many jobs they can expect to see from the spending and tax cuts.

But precise trajectories are impossible to plot and even approximations can be wildly off, as the authors of these forecasts acknowledge, usually more readily than the policymakers who use them to promote the plan.

Flip through the stacks of economic analyses underpinning the stimulus plan and you find a lot of throat-clearing qualifications and angst.

If you regulated politicians’ economic promises like businesses’ they’d all be in jail.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Financial Times: Obama’s Bank Plan Could Rob The Taxpayer.